1 May 12

A Guide to the Origin of the Morgan Dollar

The most popular coin to collect is the Morgan dollar coin. Collectors everywhere and throughout the last few decades have fallen in love with the wonderful design and look of this particular coin. Every collector needs to have a set of coins that are the centerpiece of their collection. For many, this centerpiece is the Morgan silver dollar. Many individuals who have started to collect this type of coin might be interested in learning a bit about its history as a means to understand the appeal the coin has with modern day collectors and investors.

Many individuals are surprised to find out that the main purpose behind the Morgan dollar being created was to help keep the price of silver stable. Around the time the coin was first being commissioned, there had been a very large silver strike in the state of Colorado that had a huge impact on the current price of silver. The price of silver nose-dived once this strike took place. The Bland-Allison Act was passed to help bring some stability to the price of silver by having the U.S. Treasury buy massive quantities of silver to have turned into dollar coins for currency. The coins were first minted in 1878 and then stopped in the early 1900s due to a sudden spike in the price of silver. The coin was once again minted in 1921, but only for that year.

The Morgan dollar was minted in several different locations. There were five different cities where the silver coin was minted which included New Orleans, Philadelphia, Denver, and Carson City. Out of these five mint locations, only two are active now, and those are the mints in Philadelphia and Denver. The city where the Morgan coin was minted plays a large role in determining the value and worth of a particular coin. Along with its mint city, the year it was minted also plays an important role in determining its worth.

The main individual who is responsible for the design of the Morgan dollar is George T. Morgan. What has made his design so important and so well loved by people through the years is that it has come to represent the freedom of the United States. This is largely due to the fact that it has two symbols of freedom on it. On the one side of the coin there is a portrait of Lady Liberty, while on the other side is a portrait of a majestic bald eagle. The best way to purchase these coins is through an online dealer that you can find through a quick Internet search.

Posted in rare coins, Silver Coins, Silver Investing
18 Feb 12

Rising Precious Metal Values Spark an Increase in Scrap Metal Theft

By no means is theft, in the form of quasi-legal or illegal scrapping of precious metals, a new problem. The recent escalation of spot gold prices along with other precious metals has recently caused a rash of related crimes. Federal authorities in many countries are beginning to demonstrate a concern. The National Insurance Crime Bureau confirms the likely hypothesis that economic recession not only escalates the price per ounce for precious metals, but a secondary result is a mirrored escalation in scrap theft.

A 2009 article in The Main Street Newsletter reports that the traces of gold contained in the catalytic converter of an automobile presents a potential theft target as the value of precious metals rises. More than gold, the converters are also known to contain other platinum group metals such as palladium and rhodium.

Another factor that makes catalytic converters a common target for scrappers is the ease with which a trained thief can remove them. On the side of the consumer, scrap theft is not quite as appealing; a catalytic converter in an automobile can cost as much as $2,000 under some circumstances to replace.

More recently, The Telegraph has reported that the scrap industry represents £5 billion a year in England alone. Scrap metal theft poses a problem for a much wider variety of people than it appears at first.

The reported instances of this problem that make it to the headlines such as (the theft of a statue of Barbara Hepworth worth £500,000 in London, for example) are only extremely large and expensive thefts occurring in isolated instances. In reality, the majority of scrap thieves target smaller victims and steal from them repeatedly.

As much as £1.5 billion of the trade in scrap metals, it is estimated, occurs in cash. One of the primary methods for responding to this epidemic difficulty in England is to offer an electronic payment method at recycling sites.

The benefit for such a system is that it helps track the identities of those who frequently trade in scrap metal. This way, when authorities become alerted to a theft of publicly available precious metal, they can search databases to see if anything fitting the description of the stolen item has turned up recently to metal recyclers.

One possible solution, explored by neither England nor America, would be to provide more accessible precious metal investment plans for potential illegal scrappers. Low cost financial advising directed toward the scrapper demographic may prove an effective method for reducing scrapping related crimes. At the same time, it would sublimate the same energy into more socially acceptable endeavors.

Posted in precious metals, Precious Metals Investing
17 Feb 12

An Increase In The Price Of Gold

While there was a point at which the price gold did languish, this is no longer true today. Instead, the metal is now at an all time high. There are several reasons why this is taking place.

The Fed Talks A Lot But Acts Very Little

The Fed tends to keep the interest rates low even when they acknowledge that the inflationary expectations are on the rise. This has caused people to worry that the Fed is behind the curve. Nevertheless, people don’t expect there to be a rate hike anytime soon. Instead, it is believed that it will actually moderate. On the other hand though, the Fed does say that it is concerned with inflation. However, they don’t appear to be doing anything about it. Hence the price of gold is going ballistic.

The Price Of Oil Is On The Rise

The price of oil is going up to about $400 per barrel. Since Iran is OPEC’s second biggest oil producer and the proven owner of oil reserves, what happens in this country tends to be reflected in the prices that we are seeing today. Gold has a tendency to react to this.

Gold’s Price Will Go Even Higher

Over the long-term the price of gold is going to go even higher. There are several reasons for this, including:

  • Most people purchase gold in order to protect against a lack purchasing power. The Federal Reserve seems to be more concerned with protecting the U.S. economy’s growth and that inflation is not as big of a problem as it is.
  • The best way to combat inflation is by raising interest rates. This is something that a lot of central banks are doing. Hence they are demonstrating their concern while the Federal Reserve is not.
  • The dollar’s value has dramatically fallen since the Fed started to aggressively cut interest rates. As such, the dollar is expected to fall even further and investors will be looking for something else to invest in.

In Conclusion

While you may think that the price of gold is at its peak, investors don’t seem to believe that this is true. They seem to think that the price is going to go up even further. Before this happens tough you really should invest in gold. By the looks of things you don’t have anything to lose but you do have everything to gain.

Posted in Gold, Gold Investing, Gold Price Quotes, Gold Prices, Invest In Gold
16 Feb 12

Advice On Gold Investment From Tocqueville Asset Management

The following is a widely circulated truism about the psychology of commodity investment: people enjoy the fantasy of having an investment in something they can hold in their hand. This becomes especially true when that something is shiny and made out of expensive metal. When consumer faith in global economy wanes, we seem to find solace in the idea that even if the dollar ceased to have value, the value of gold supersedes the dollar and would remain valuable regardless of how fiat currency behaves at a particular moment.

Companies like Tocqueville Asset Management understand this psychological tendency, and set up a gold fund in 1998. In the late 1990′s, while everyone else swore by the dot-com bubble, gold price stagnated around $300 an ounce. Many otherwise savvy investors believed that gold would never make a come back. You can imagine how salty the dot-com enthusiasts felt, who believed this ten years ago feel today, as gold currently trades at almost $2,000 per ounce.

The Tocqueville gold fund performed poorly in the early 2000′s, Those who held their ground found themselves handsomely rewarded, however, when the dot com boom withered and crumpled. At a gain of nearly 40% gains during the late 2000′s, suddenly, gold investment no longer seems like a quaint idea for paranoid people hoarding valuables in mattresses, wearing tin foil helmets and worrying about alien abduction.

More recently, juggernaut governments such as India, Russia and China have been spotted gobbling up gold for storage in their national reserve. This re-enforces the notion that gold will continue to rise in value, becoming an increasingly leaned-upon support for large economies.

It is not gold commodities markets alone that are set to skyrocket, but gold stocks and stocks in gold mining operations are also performing quite well. At the top of the list, you will find gold mining operations in South and North America and Canada; gold operations located in more remote areas trail closely behind them.

Some investment analysts suggest that local investors stay away from foreign gold mining operations. They can require comprehensive understanding of political circumstances and knowledge of these governments’ bureaucracies to invest in intelligently. Another word of wisdom from Tocqueville is that while the gold mines in countries like south Africa seem to fall on more precarious footing with each passing day, more nascent gold mining operations such as the Peru-based Buenaventura have all of the required catalysts to explode, financially, in the coming years.

 

Posted in Gold, Gold Investing, Gold Prices, Invest In Gold
15 Feb 12

The Best Of Silver

Right now more than ever everyone is being very cautious about what they spend their money on, with the chaotic state of our economy it is just hard to justify having to spend money, especially since most people have been forced to dip at the very least a little into their savings.  There are a few purchases that are going to be inevitable though, people are still going to have to pay for basic things like food as well as their daily bills, plus even with the way the economy has been it isn’t possible to completely cut yourself off from making a few frivolous spending.

There are some purchases though that can actually be quite profitable, in large based around how the economy is actually going.  There are a few markets out there which are actually able to not only profit, but can actually thrive on these difficult economic conditions, which means that it is actually possible to make a little bit of profit in these times, something which is going to be very much appreciated since it can help to replenish lost savings.

One of the best purchases that could be made right now is to buy silver bars.  Buying silver bars might seem like it is actually quite expensive, but that is because whenever people see silver bars used in the popular media it tends to be shown as being an almost priceless treasure.

It is true that silver bars are going to be valuable, but one of the biggest advantages that silver has over any other precious metal is the fact that silver is going to be much more affordable.  This might not seem like that big of a deal at first, because generally the less valuable something is, then the less of a profit that can be made, but because silver is so affordable, it is going to be one of the more popular of the precious metals.  Right now, people aren’t going to be that comfortable keeping money in the bank, at the very least they’re going to want something they can potentially fall back on.  This means that they are going to be buying precious metals, and while something like gold might be more valuable, people are still going to be limited in what they are able to purchase, so they are going to go for silver instead, and the more popular silver becomes, the more past purchase of silver are going to be worth.

Posted in Silver, Silver Bars, Silver Bullion, Silver Coins, Silver Investing, Silver Prices

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